Appetite and eating behavior are controlled by a network mechanism in which various regulator groups are complexly linked with one another, thereby maintaining a constant internal environment and body weight. However, in recent years, while adiposis is increasing among children and middle-aged and elderly persons, emaciation accompanied with anorexia is increasing mainly among young women. Thus, failure of an eating-control mechanism has been widely recognized as a pathological condition. In particular, anorexia nervosa has been increasing in number year by year, now becoming one of diseases attracting even social attention. This disease is characterized by an extreme fall in the intake amount and uncontrollableness of maintaining a normal weight over the minimum due to the fall. Slightly more than 90% of the patients suffering from the disease are women, and the disease ranks high in the adolescent female mortality rate. Because the disease is caused by an addition of a psychological trauma (pointing out of fatness, etc.) or a stress to a problem in growth or a genetic factor, principal treatment means therefore depend much on hospitalized behavior therapy.
For cancerous cachexia recognized in about 80% of patients dying of cancer, appetite depression and emaciation, which are concomitant symptoms, are the problems when considering a quality of life of a patient suffering from cancer, so that researches have been advanced regarding a mechanism of eating disorders and a treatment strategy more intensively than ever. Although the cause of inappetence accompanied with suffering from cancer has not necessarily been elucidated yet, participation of various substances causing dysbolism (proinflammatory cytokines, neuroendocrine hormones, neurotransmitters, eicosanoids, tumor-derived factors, etc.) has been proposed, based on an idea that “a substance causing cancerous cachexia being equal to a factor inducing appetite depression”. The prior treatment is mainly a forced energy supply by transfusion, while it is also known that the condition of cancerous cachexia is not necessarily improved only by the treatment. As recent trends in treatment methods, there is an example in which use of corticosteroids and synthesized progesterons (megestorol acetate or medroxyprogesteron acetate) is recommended to stimulate appetite of a patient suffering from cancer who is recognized as having appetite depression or weight reduction. However, a guideline is still not clearly defined regarding how to use the above for obtaining the maximum effect, analyses of results from future clinical trials are expected. Furthermore, agonists or antagonists of neuropeptides or drugs targeting TNF-α, IL-6, CRP, for example, are developed and are now in a stage of clinical trial thereof [referential literature: Nihon Rinsho, Vol 59, No 3, 515–520 (2001)]. Additionally, because combinational use of anticancer drugs is widely adopted in chemotherapies of cancer, it is considered that there is a possibility of treatment with combinational use of existing anticancer drugs, in treatment of appetite depression and emaciation accompanied with cancerous cachexia.
Under such circumstances as above, detailed elucidation of the eating-control mechanism is still being researched, and especially, clinical problems on anorexia and emaciation are not sufficiently solved. Therefore, in addition to the treatment methods currently used, there is a strong desire for development of a further improved method or a novel treatment method.
JP 7-165708 A, JP 8-231505 A, and JP 2000-247949 A disclose the same sulfonamide compounds and sulfonic acid ester compounds as the present invention, but there is no description about the appetite-stimulating effect thereof.